Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.
More and more learning is taking place online (flipped classrooms, online learning, and hybrid classrooms)
Many schools have become 1:1 with technology which makes much of the communication with peers and teachers online.
Connectivism and support for students to succeed
Up to date and well maintained technology such as computers, tablets, and usable Internet bandwidth
Teaching technology literacy skills such as accessing suitable websites, searching online databases, search engines.
Teaching students how to organize data into documents, spreadsheets, blogs, and websites.
A benefit of connectivism is that, as Cormier (2008) recommends, it is allowing a community of people (working with learning technologies) to legitimize what they are doing. Educators wishing to extend the use of social media within their practice can refine and spread knowledge more quickly through membership of multiple communities.
What are the steps that an educator who wishes to adopt connectivism can take?
Follow the blogs of those who innovate with educational technologies.
Experiment (within your comfort zone) with web services and tools that might enrich teaching and learning in your practice.
Use, publish and share resources through blogs, wikis, photo and video sharing sites.
Encourage students to use the web for scholarly resources – being critical and selective, and attributing sources.
Assign student activities that enable effective use of media to report process and, where appropriate, outcomes.
Make explicit the concept of connectivism in student support activities so that they can exploit it in their own independent learning.
The parts of Connectivism that are compelling and most relevant
The idea of connectivism accepts that technology is part of students today's decision making process. We have things like Siri and Watson giving us answers to questions we ask daily, so people are going to be influenced by it.
The phenomena of web 2.0 pose a new competitive situation for the traditional school system. Education must inevitably incorporate the elements of eLearning 2.0 into its repository of tools if it does not want the gulf between the generation’s culture and school to deepen even more dramatically. The portal of Apple Education compares the cultural difference between the new generation that uses web 2.0 and the teachers who were socialized in the paradigm of industrial society as follows:
Digital Native LearnersDigitalImmigrant Teachers
Prefer receiving information quickly from multiple multimedia sources.
Prefer parallel processing and multitasking.
Prefer processing pictures, sounds and video before text.
Prefer random access to hyper linked multimedia information.
Prefer to interact/network simultaneously with many others.
Prefer to learn “just-in-time.”
Prefer instant gratification and instant rewards.
Prefer learning that is relevant, instantly useful and fun.
DigitalImmigrant Teachers
Prefer slow and controlled release of information from limited sources.
Prefer singular processing and single or limited tasking.
Prefer to provide text before pictures, sounds and video.
Prefer to provide information linearly, logically and sequentially.
Prefer students to work independently rather than network and interact.
Prefer to teach “just-in-case” (it’s in the exam).
Prefer deferred gratification and deferred rewards.
Prefer to teach to the curriculum guide and standardized tests.
Criticism of Connectivism for GROUP B to use in their BLOG entries:
Students use resources on the Internet as a vehicle for learning. Students learn through sharing, or collaborating in an online setting. Learning is treating as an on going process and sometimes the answer or solution is "arrived" at based on the networks or nodes. In other words, sometimes there is no clearly defined answer. Sometimes the process of learning is more important than the end result. I think there are some benefits such as students learning how to cooperate and to work together using technology. The biggest hindrance, at least as I see it, a lack of clear conclusion. While I can appreciate the importance of the process of learning...sometimes technology is used for "technology's sake" and not for a clear goal. I think this theory promotes process over results. Not sure if that is clear. So, yes, I'd say it's a theory but I would not choose to follow it for my classroom.
Home > Group A Workspace > Learning Activity 6-1
The Principles of Connectivism:
Siemans, George. Connectivism. A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. December 12, 2004. ELearnSpace.
http://elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
Connectivism relevancy to our teaching practice
Connectivism and support for students to succeed
Bell, F. 2009. Connectivism: A Network Theory for Teaching and Learning in a Connected World. http://usir.salford.ac.uk/2569/1/ConnectivismEdDev.pdf
The parts of Connectivism that are compelling and most relevant
- Digital Immigrant Teachers
- Prefer slow and controlled release of information from limited sources.
- Prefer singular processing and single or limited tasking.
- Prefer to provide text before pictures, sounds and video.
- Prefer to provide information linearly, logically and sequentially.
- Prefer students to work independently rather than network and interact.
- Prefer to teach “just-in-case” (it’s in the exam).
- Prefer deferred gratification and deferred rewards.
- Prefer to teach to the curriculum guide and standardized tests.
Bessenyei, I. 2008. Learning and Teaching in the Information Society. E-Learning 2.0 and Connectivism.http://www.mmiweb.org.uk/egyptianteachers/site/downloads/Besseneyi_2008.pdf
Connectivism and confusion
Here is a good resource you anyone is looking for help on Connectivism:
https://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2012/01/what-does-connectivism-mean-for-education/
Criticism of Connectivism for GROUP B to use in their BLOG entries:
Students use resources on the Internet as a vehicle for learning. Students learn through sharing, or collaborating in an online setting. Learning is treating as an on going process and sometimes the answer or solution is "arrived" at based on the networks or nodes. In other words, sometimes there is no clearly defined answer. Sometimes the process of learning is more important than the end result. I think there are some benefits such as students learning how to cooperate and to work together using technology. The biggest hindrance, at least as I see it, a lack of clear conclusion. While I can appreciate the importance of the process of learning...sometimes technology is used for "technology's sake" and not for a clear goal. I think this theory promotes process over results. Not sure if that is clear. So, yes, I'd say it's a theory but I would not choose to follow it for my classroom.